San Juan Capistrano City Hall is located on Paseo Adelento onthe west side of the city. ///ADDITIONAL INF:cv.newsletter.0109.- ANA VENEGAS, THE ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER – San Juan Capistrano City Hall is located on Paseo Adelento onthe west side of the city.

With less than a year left in their four-year terms, three San Juan Capistrano councilmembers are facing recall efforts.

Shortly before Thanksgiving, opponents of a proposed 5.6-acre commercial development project known as River Street filed notices of intent to recall Mayor Kerry Ferguson and City Councilmember Derek Reeve. The notices of intent allow the opponents to begin collecting signatures from registered San Juan Capistrano voters in favor of the recall, required before any election.

The group trying to oust Ferguson and Reeve, both elected in 2014, has accuse them of betraying campaign promises and opening the door to development next to San Juan’s historic Los Rios District.

Another group filed recall papers on Monday, Nov. 27, targeting Councilwoman Pam Patterson.In the notice, Patterson’s opponents said she participated in “an illegal referendum” that led to legal settlements that stand to cost the city $1 million.

Both groups submitted a laundry list of other grievances in the notices. The three council members have since filed point-by-point responses, rejecting the complaints.

The River Street assertions stem from the City Council’s 4-1 vote to process a local developer’s application requesting a change to the Los Rios Specific Plan; the proposed amendment would allow a 61,000-square-foot, farmstead-themed commercial project. Opponents complained that the project far exceeds the Los Rios Specific Plan’s restrictions on development; the City Council, they said, should have instead said no and required compliance.

Council members who supported processing the application said a developer has a right to apply for an amendment, with no guarantee of approval. This winter, the city will conduct environmental studies – paid for by the developer – to evaluate the proposal’s impact on traffic, parking and several other quality-of-life issues. The City Council could vote on whether to approve River Street in 2018.

“You ignored the voices of residents, former council members and mayors to abandon consideration of this development,” the notices of intent to recall Ferguson and Reeve said.

“I ignore no residents,” Ferguson replied on Nov. 28. “Introducing applicants to stakeholders is part of my role as liaison to the Los Rios District.”

Reeve’s Nov. 28 reply: “I vote against certain development proposals, as I have done numerous times, but I will not block San Juan Capistrano residents from a fair process.”

The referendum cited in the Patterson notice refers to a local group’s effort to overturn the City Council’s 2014 approval of another development project. That development was the Urban Village, a hotel and condominium project; the referendum never went to a public vote because a newly seated City Council, which included Patterson, chose to repeal the approval in 2015 when referendum petitions were presented to the council.

The developer sued, and in 2016, a judge ruled that the repeal exceeded the City Council’s authority. Settling the lawsuit will cost the city $750,000, officials said, and settlement of an earlier lawsuit that also challenged the approval of Urban Village could result in the city paying attorney’s fees.

The recall group suggested that the settlements will ultimately cost taxpayers over $1 million.

If the wording of the recall petitions meet Orange County Registrar of Voters’ requirements, the council members’ opponents could being collecting signatures in a matter of weeks. Proponents would have up to 120 days to gather at least 3,844 signatures – 20 percent of San Juan’s 19,220 registered voters – and force a recall election.

Such an election would likely be in the spring and could be consolidated with the state’s June’s gubernatorial primary election. Producing a stand-alone election earlier than that would likely cost the city $100,000, the city clerk’s office reported.

A recall election would be conducted citywide, and candidates could be placed on the same ballot to succeed anyone ousted. Any replacement council members would only be guaranteed to serve until the November 2018 elections, when those seats are scheduled to be refilled – this time by district, a change that went into effect during the 2016 election.

Fred Swegles grew up in small-town San Clemente before the freeway. He has covered the town since 1970. Today he covers San Clemente and San Juan Capistrano. He was in the second graduating class at San Clemente High School, after having spent the first two years of high school in double sessions at historic Capistrano Union High School in San Juan. When the new high school opened, he became first sports editor of the school paper, The Triton. He studied journalism and Spanish at USC on scholarship, graduating with honors. Was sports editor of the Daily Trojan. Surfed on the USC surf team. (High school surfing didn't exist back then.) With the Sun Post, he began covering competitive surfing from the mid-1970s, with the birth of the the modern world tour and the origins of high school surf teams. He got into surf photography and into world travel. Has surfed on six continents (not Antarctica). Has visited 11 San Clementes. Has written photo-illustrated profiles on most of them, with more in the works.

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